To remind, you and your group will be responsible for creating student evaluation tools, for collecting work, for grading assignments, and for recording grades.
In addition to extensive reading, all units should include significant writing. It is assumed that students in 480 have taken 479, are familiar with teaching the writing process and are ready to utilize a variety of writing strategies in their pedagogy. Two to three pages of polished writing per week is fair to ask of students in 480. This can be in the form of narrative or persuasive writing, lesson plans, journals, free writing, etc. It is fair to expect work to be typed and well-edited. Regardless of the type of evalaution tool you use, you should be prepared to offer students a clear idea of what they must do, what assignments are worth, how they will be evalauted, etc. I suggest becoming more familiar with evaluation tools and rubrics as you create your asssignments.
Integrating technology, such as the Confer class computer conference, classroom websites, the WWW, webquests, educational software, Power Point, etc. is required. Experiment with our wireless-laptop computers, use websites, data projectors, powerpoint, digital projects, etc. Consider designing activities or making assignments using some of the most cutting edge on-line literature lesson ideas.
Help prepare future teachers to work with diverse classrooms that include a variety of academic skills, cultural backgrounds, and special needs students.
Models of excellent assignments/projects should be shared with the class. Student group leaders should be mindful of the need of all students to prepare rich portfolios for teaching and should find ways to encourage students to benefit from each other's work.
II. Assessment
Students are encouraged to develop authentic forms of assessment that foster meaningful and ongoing learning. Expectations for assignments should be clear in advance, and for major assignments, groups are expected to create and to present all students with evaluation tools/rubrics.
A variety of components may be involved in determining the grade for each unit, and careful and thoughtful experimentation is encouraged. All major or unit assignments that are to receive a letter grade must be read by at least three student leaders who must all participate in the grade decision. While there should be clearly stated minimum expectations, assignments should have no "top"-students should be encouraged to take projects as far as they would like to.
Work should be returned to class members promptly and grades reported to the professor no more than 7-8 DAYS after the end of the unit. Groups are responsible for setting their own late paper or make-up work policies.
Lastly, should there be conflicts/questions regarding peer evaluations/grades/assessments, I reserve the right to explore the situation, to discuss the matter with all parties and, if need be, to change/alter grades.